Pune school principal assaulted allegedly by members of Hindutva group

The principal of a school in Maharashtra’s Pune district was assaulted on Tuesday allegedly by members of a Hindutva outfit who claimed that students had been asked to sing a Christian prayer, the police said. They also objected to a closed-circuit television camera in a passage between the girls’ and boys’ washrooms.

A video shared widely on social media shows Alexander Coates Reid, the principal of the DY Patil High School in Pune’s Talegaon Dabhade town, being chased by a mob shouting “Har Har Mahadev”.

Reid is seen in a torn shirt as he runs up the stairs of a building. A person in the mob then assaults him but is stopped by the others.

Police Inspector Ranjit Sawant of the Talegaon MIDC area said that a few parents, accompanied by a group belonging to a Hindutva outfit, assaulted Reid and tore his clothes.

Sawant said that the camera to which they objected was not inside the cubicles but “outside in the passage”.

They also claimed that the students were asked to sing a Christian prayer every morning. “It is a common prayer that starts with ‘Oh Lord’,” Sawant said. “The parents said it is a verse from the Bible. But there is nothing in the prayer...

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